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| Illustration by Ernesto Bertani |
A JOKE
by Anton Chekhov
IT was a bright
winter midday. . . . There was a sharp snapping frost and the curls on
Nadenka's temples and the down on her upper lip were covered with silvery
frost. She was holding my arm and we were standing on a high hill. From where
we stood to the ground below there stretched a smooth sloping descent in which
the sun was reflected as in a looking-glass. Beside us was a little sledge
lined with bright red cloth.
"Let us go
down, Nadyezhda Petrovna!" I besought her. "Only once! I assure you
we shall be all right and not hurt."
But Nadenka was
afraid. The slope from her little goloshes to the bottom of the ice hill seemed
to her a terrible, immensely deep abyss. Her spirit failed her, and she held
her breath as she looked down, when I merely suggested her getting into the
sledge, but what would it be if she were to risk flying into the abyss! She
would die, she would go out of her mind.
"I entreat
you!" I said. "You mustn't be afraid! You know it's poor-spirited,
it's cowardly!"
Nadenka gave
way at last, and from her face I saw that she gave way in mortal dread. I sat
her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm round her and with her cast
myself down the precipice.
The sledge flew
like a bullet. The air cleft by our flight beat in our faces, roared, whistled
in our ears, tore at us, nipped us cruelly in its anger, tried to tear our
heads off our shoulders. We had hardly strength to breathe from the pressure of
the wind. It seemed as though the devil himself had caught us in his claws and
was dragging us with a roar to hell. Surrounding objects melted into one long
furiously racing streak . . . another moment and it seemed we should perish.
"I love
you, Nadya!" I said in a low voice.
The sledge
began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and the whirr of the
runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to breathe, and at last we
were at the bottom. Nadenka was more dead than alive. She was pale and scarcely
breathing. . . . I helped her to get up.
"Nothing
would induce me to go again," she said, looking at me with wide eyes full
of horror. "Nothing in the world! I almost died!"
A little later
she recovered herself and looked enquiringly into my eyes, wondering had I
really uttered those four words or had she fancied them in the roar of the
hurricane. And I stood beside her smoking and looking attentively at my glove.
She took my arm
and we spent a long while walking near the ice-hill. The riddle evidently would
not let her rest. . . . Had those words been uttered or not? . . . Yes or no?
Yes or no? It was the question of pride, or honour, of life -- a very important
question, the most important question in the world. Nadenka kept impatiently,
sorrowfully looking into my face with a penetrating glance; she answered at
random, waiting to see whether I would not speak. Oh, the play of feeling on
that sweet face! I saw that she was struggling with herself, that she wanted to
say something, to ask some question, but she could not find the words; she felt
awkward and frightened and troubled by her joy. . . .
"Do you
know what," she said without looking at me.
"Well?"
I asked.
"Let us .
. . slide down again."
We clambered up
the ice-hill by the steps again. I sat Nadenka, pale and trembling, in the
sledge; again we flew into the terrible abyss, again the wind roared and the
runners whirred, and again when the flight of our sledge was at its swiftest
and noisiest, I said in a low voice:
"I love
you, Nadenka!"
When the sledge
stopped, Nadenka flung a glance at the hill down which we had both slid, then
bent a long look upon my face, listened to my voice which was unconcerned and
passionless, and the whole of her little figure, every bit of it, even her muff
and her hood expressed the utmost bewilderment, and on her face was written:
"What does it mean? Who uttered those words? Did he, or did I
only fancy it?"
The uncertainty
worried her and drove her out of all patience. The poor girl did not answer my
questions, frowned, and was on the point of tears.
"Hadn't we
better go home?" I asked.
"Well, I .
. . I like this tobogganning," she said, flushing. "Shall we go down
once more?"
She
"liked" the tobogganning, and yet as she got into the sledge she was,
as both times before, pale, trembling, hardly able to breathe for terror.
We went down
for the third time, and I saw she was looking at my face and watching my lips.
But I put my handkerchief to my lips, coughed, and when we reached the middle
of the hill I succeeded in bringing out:
"I love
you, Nadya!"
And the mystery
remained a mystery! Nadenka was silent, pondering on something. . . . I saw her
home, she tried to walk slowly, slackened her pace and kept waiting to see
whether I would not say those words to her, and I saw how her soul was
suffering, what effort she was making not to say to herself:
"It cannot
be that the wind said them! And I don't want it to be the wind that said them!"
Next morning I
got a little note:
"If you
are tobogganning to-day, come for me. --N."
And from that
time I began going every day tobogganning with Nadenka, and as we flew down in
the sledge, every time I pronounced in a low voice the same words: "I love
you, Nadya!"
Soon Nadenka
grew used to that phrase as to alcohol or morphia. She could not live without
it. It is true that flying down the ice-hill terrified her as before, but now
the terror and danger gave a peculiar fascination to words of love -- words
which as before were a mystery and tantalized the soul. The same two -- the
wind and I were still suspected. . . . Which of the two was making love to her
she did not know, but apparently by now she did not care; from which goblet one
drinks matters little if only the beverage is intoxicating.
It happened I
went to the skating-ground alone at midday; mingling with the crowd I saw
Nadenka go up to the ice-hill and look about for me. . . then she timidly
mounted the steps. . . . She was frightened of going alone -- oh, how
frightened! She was white as the snow, she was trembling, she went as though to
the scaffold, but she went, she went without looking back, resolutely. She had
evidently determined to put it to the test at last: would those sweet amazing
words be heard when I was not there? I saw her, pale, her lips parted with
horror, get into the sledge, shut her eyes and saying good-bye for ever to the
earth, set off. . . . "Whrrr!" whirred the runners. Whether Nadenka
heard those words I do not know. I only saw her getting up from the sledge
looking faint and exhausted. And one could tell from her face that she could
not tell herself whether she had heard anything or not. Her terror while she
had been flying down had deprived of her all power of hearing, of
discriminating sounds, of understanding.
But then the
month of March arrived . . . the spring sunshine was more kindly. . . . Our
ice-hill turned dark, lost its brilliance and finally melted. We gave up
tobogganning. There was nowhere now where poor Nadenka could hear those words,
and indeed no one to utter them, since there was no wind and I was going to
Petersburg -- for long, perhaps for ever.
It happened two
days before my departure I was sitting in the dusk in the little garden which
was separated from the yard of Nadenka's house by a high fence with nails in
it. . . . It was still pretty cold, there was still snow by the manure heap,
the trees looked dead but there was already the scent of spring and the rooks
were cawing loudly as they settled for their night's rest. I went up to the
fence and stood for a long while peeping through a chink. I saw Nadenka come
out into the porch and fix a mournful yearning gaze on the sky. . . . The
spring wind was blowing straight into her pale dejected face. . . . It reminded
her of the wind which roared at us on the ice-hill when she heard those four
words, and her face became very, very sorrowful, a tear trickled down her
cheek, and the poor child held out both arms as though begging the wind to
bring her those words once more. And waiting for the wind I said in a low
voice:
"I love
you, Nadya!"
Mercy! The
change that came over Nadenka! She uttered a cry, smiled all over her face and
looking joyful, happy and beautiful, held out her arms to meet the wind.
And I went off
to pack up. . . .
That was long
ago. Now Nadenka is married; she married -- whether of her own choice or not
does not matter -- a secretary of the Nobility Wardenship and now she has three
children. That we once went tobogganning together, and that the wind brought
her the words "I love you, Nadenka," is not forgotten; it is for her
now the happiest, most touching, and beautiful memory in her life. . . .
But now that I
am older I cannot understand why I uttered those words, what was my motive in that
joke. . . .
1886.
1886.
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Short Stories
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